A 33-year-old Miramar man was sentenced today to ten years up the river for drunkenly mowing over and killing a motorcyclist in 2009.
Robert Jones pleaded guilty a few weeks ago to killing 43-year-old Eric Maron while he was drunk-driving his fiancée's daughter to school on September 9, 2009.
The sentence handed down today by Broward Circuit Judge Joel Lazarus as part of Jones' plea agreement wasn't the maximum, but it's certainly different from a sentence last month from the Broward Circuit Court in which Ryan LeVin -- who mowed over two people before speeding away -- was sentenced to house arrest.
There were a few differences between the driving-and-killing cases of Jones and LeVin: Jones was driving the 9-year-old to school when drove his Toyota Avalon over the motorcyclist, then left the girl in the car and ran away. LeVin was racing his $120,000 Porsche after a night of barhopping when he mowed over and killed two British businessmen -- who were on the sidewalk -- before driving away.
The similarities: The Sun-Sentinel says Jones had a warrant in another state for violating probation in a case in which
he left the scene of a crash involving bodily
injury. LeVin did too, except he was on parole. Both men then ended up killing people with their cars and running away.
The big difference: Jones goes to prison for ten years, and LeVin was sentenced to two years' house arrest after he paid the victims' families an undisclosed amount.
Both cases were handled in the same courthouse but under different judges. Jones was also sentenced to five years on a child neglect charge, but
that runs concurrently with his ten-year manslaughter charge.
That should teach a lesson to everyone out there: Don't commit crimes in Broward County unless you're ready to pay for it -- literally.
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